So, say a studio buys the film rights to Portal. Then let's say they actually make it. What should they do? Would this be a terrible movie (as most movies based on video games are) or would this really rock? And then would it spawn a sequel, and maybe a third film, regardless of whether Valve had made a third game or not by then? Would they make a Portal 3 to tie into a third movie? Would that be any good or would it be a disaster?

Well, a guide for any filmmakers who are tasked with making a movie of Portal:

1. Use all the voice actors from the game.

2. Use CGI sparingly. Make the sets physical while only CGing elements like portals and GLaDOS. Only do computer-generation when you really have to, otherwise the film would get a really cheesy visual look like the terrible Percy Jackson movies or the well-written and conceived (though plagued by so-so acting and cheesy CGI) Oz movie from earlier this year.

3. Stay true to the game. Obvious, yes, but important. Lots of bad movie adaptations have most of their problems due to spirit and construction not faithful to the source material (again, the Percy Jackson movies).

4. Get actors who are actually good, and have a director and writer who really know what they're doing.

5. Get some additional ideas and elements from Valve's archived concepts. Maybe more derivative movies could come out of that.

Well, you guys are all probably better to judge than me since most of you have actually played the game, and all I've done is window shop for it on YouTube. What do you think?

Joe the Stickfiddler wrote:
3. Stay true to the game. Obvious, yes, but important. Lots of bad movie adaptations have most of their problems due to spirit and construction not faithful to the source material (again, the Percy Jackson movies).

I'm not sure if the director of that movie had ever actually read a mythology textbook, or if all the plot points were intentionally based off of REALLY obscure references from the Theogony and Metamorphoses. I can find parallels to most of them, but they're probably accidental.

Anyway, I don't think there will ever be a true Portal movie. There are several short art films on YouTube which are pretty good, but I can't think of a good way to base a whole movie on the games.

If they make a portal movie, it shouldn't be about portals, and they shouldn't call it "Portal".

Joe the Stickfiddler wrote:
Would this be a terrible movie (as most movies based on video games are)

Answered your own question there. Take a look at this list. Pay attention to the Rotten Tomatoes scores. There is not a single good video game movie in the world (with the exception of a couple of the Pokemon movies, but they were movies of the anime of the game).

Joe the Stickfiddler also wrote:
1. Use all the voice actors from the game.

Gooooood Luuuuuuuck Wiiiiiiith Thaaaaaaat.

Ellen McLain one cold maybe rope in with the same deal that got one the licences, and people can do really good impressions of J.K. Simmons and Stephen Merchant (we've seen Harry101UK among others do it), but one cannot get all 3 in on a movie project like this.
And there's no WAY you can convince Chell's voice actor to come.

yishbarr wrote:
If they make a portal movie, it shouldn't be about portals, and they shouldn't call it "Portal".

This is the main problem with a Portal movie. It can't be about the portals. Portals worked in a game because they offered freedom of movement and possibilities for puzzles, neither of which can be conveyed properly in a non-interactive medium. It would therefore be impossible to "stay true to the game" in a movie because Portal and Portal 2 were made to be games. That's part of what makes them so great; they weren't trying to ape another medium. Making a movie from a game removes essential elements from the original product that relied on the interactivity.

I'm going to stab myself under my fingernails for the double post, but this is getting too uncomfortably long for what's next:

Here's a selection of short films that basically serve the same purpose (I'm confident you'll like them.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorZUFfpvC0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=539oNONcCrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk
And for a longer video with an interesting take on the concept:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9mDxz9BXDk

AntiVector wrote:
Joe the Stickfiddler also wrote:

1. Use all the voice actors from the game.

Gooooood Luuuuuuuck Wiiiiiiith Thaaaaaaat.

Ellen McLain one cold maybe rope in with the same deal that got one the licences, and people can do really good impressions of J.K. Simmons and Stephen Merchant (we've seen Harry101UK among others do it), but one cannot get all 3 in on a movie project like this.
And there's no WAY you can convince Chell's voice actor to come.

If a studio has a enough money to buy the rights to make a Portal movie, they are certainly going to have enough money to hire those voice actors. Voice actors are much much much cheaper than the whole rest of the project, like the CGI team.
I think our best bet for director for a Portal movie would be J.J http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7mihllgiro

BenVlodgi wrote:
If a studio has a enough money to buy the rights to make a Portal movie, they are certainly going to have enough money to hire those voice actors. Voice actors are much much much cheaper than the whole rest of the project, like the CGI team.

I was actually thinking in terms of difficulty to contact. VALVe themselves didn't have high hopes of getting Stephen Merchant on board, even though Wheatley's script was written for him, and I'm sure Simmons is way too busy being J. Jonah Jameson and that one guy from Legend of Korra to be part of a movie right now (except for the Marc Lawrence/Hugh Grant comedy IMDB says he's doing).

And do you KNOW how many movie spots Chell's voice actor is slated for?

ADDENDUM:

BenVlodgi wrote:
I think our best bet for director for a Portal movie would be J.J.

Producer I can see. But director? I'd be concerned that it would turn out like Cloverfield or Super 8: movies that just didn't live up to their expectations past the bits you saw in the trailers and pre-release material.

the actual voice acting only took 1-2 days for wheatly and Cave... it shouldn't be hard to pull them away for a day or two... also they were unsure because it was a video game, and they found that it was super easy to get a hold of them because thats how they make money... I assume the movie plans on paying them.. in which case it shouldn't be a problem.. the directing J.J. does is fine.... what drives a movie is the story... if the story is no good then the movie is.. meh

BenVlodgi wrote:
I think our best bet for director for a Portal movie would be J.J

While that would be excellent (Star Trek 2 and Super 8 are great movies) J.J. Abrams has been commissioned by Disney to direct the next Star Wars movie, and might be too busy with future installments that, as well as producing future Star Trek films (more likely producing, since he'll be busy with Star Wars and it will be awesome!

So I think that more realistic candidates are Tim Burton, or Steven Spielberg. Burton seems better suited to the job though.

Joe the Stickfiddler wrote:
BenVlodgi wrote:

I think our best bet for director for a Portal movie would be J.J

While that would be excellent (Star Trek 2 and Super 8 are great movies) J.J. Abrams has been commissioned by Disney to direct the next Star Wars movie, and might be too busy with future installments that, as well as producing future Star Trek films (more likely producing, since he'll be busy with Star Wars and it will be awesome!

So I think that more realistic candidates are Tim Burton, or Steven Spielberg. Burton seems better suited to the job though.

I know J.J. is super busy... I just meant in light of the comments he made in that video.

I just remembered that they have got to use the closing theme songs by Jonathan Coulton in the movie. Would there be any complications in that?

BenVlodgi wrote:
the actual voice acting only took 1-2 days for wheatly and Cave... it shouldn't be hard to pull them away for a day or two... also they were unsure because it was a video game, and they found that it was super easy to get a hold of them because thats how they make money.

That... makes a lot of sense, actually. I didn't think voice acting was that non-intrusive. Kinda feel like a twonce now for assuming it was intrusive. The More You Know, I guess.

To take this thread in a slightly different direction, Chell herself seems like a pretty flexible role. No voicing is required, so theoretically any actress could dye their hair and play her.
Let's say Hayden Panettiehhhhhhhhhh- Too good looking to be called "fatty". We need a more average-looking actress with a signature face.

Joe the Stickfiddler wrote:
So I think that more realistic candidates are Tim Burton, or Steven Spielberg. Burton seems better suited to the job though.

Tim Burton. I LIKE that choice! And if we go with Tim Burton, we've already found our Chell: Helena Bonham Carter!

AntiVector wrote:
To take this thread in a slightly different direction, Chell herself seems like a pretty flexible role. No voicing is required, so theoretically any actress could dye their hair and play her.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. List of a few potential Chells:

1. Jennifer Lawrence

2. Selena Gomez

3. Michelle Williams

AntiVector wrote:
yishbarr wrote:

If they make a portal movie, it shouldn't be about portals, and they shouldn't call it "Portal".

This is the main problem with a Portal movie. It can't be about the portals. Portals worked in a game because they offered freedom of movement and possibilities for puzzles, neither of which can be conveyed properly in a non-interactive medium. It would therefore be impossible to "stay true to the game" in a movie because Portal and Portal 2 were made to be games. That's part of what makes them so great; they weren't trying to ape another medium. Making a movie from a game removes essential elements from the original product that relied on the interactivity.

Disagreed... the filmmaker just has to be clever enough! If they make the movie in the right way, then they can have the story not mainly focus on portals, because that would be boring. They can have the story focus on the story of the game, which involves portals. So in the story, our girl Chell is a test subject in the Aperture Labs where her life is at stake, and her survival just happens to depend on the use of portals.

Joe the Stickfiddler wrote:
BenVlodgi wrote:

I think our best bet for director for a Portal movie would be J.J

While that would be excellent (Star Trek 2 and Super 8 are great movies) J.J. Abrams has been commissioned by Disney to direct the next Star Wars movie, and might be too busy with future installments that, as well as producing future Star Trek films (more likely producing, since he'll be busy with Star Wars and it will be awesome!

Maybe I was wrong and JJA will get going on a Portal movie after all! http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/02/06/ ... ame-movies

Predicted release for the Portal movie: July 28, 2017

Oh yeah, I hadn't seen the video left by Ben before...

I suppose you could combine (ba-dum TSSS) it with the Half-Life storyline, that would make a "good" action movie if you just filmed HL2 gameplay with a third-person camera. Then you could focus on the portals and still get funding for the movie concept.

One thing I thought of is that if Stephen Merchant cannot voice Wheatley, then Johnny Depp seems like a good fit for the job.

If the first movie was successful and they pressed forth with sequels, do you think they would make the single player and coop stories in the Portal 2 game two separate movies, or would they try to combine them somehow?

Joe the Stickfiddler wrote:
If the first movie was successful and they pressed forth with sequels, do you think they would make the single player and coop stories in the Portal 2 game two separate movies, or would they try to combine them somehow?

Not to burst your bubble and I'm sure you already know this, but there is the chance of anyone making a Portal movie is about 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%.

However because I know we're speaking hypothetically, if they were to make a movie, they shouldn't combine the cooperative story because it wasn't designed to be really deep. The writers knew and they discussed this in some video I saw of them that they didn't try to make the story very deep because you're not going to be laughing to GLaDOS' dialogue in coop, you're going to be laughing about how you just took the light bridge out from under your partner and sent them sprawling to their death.

DISCLAIMER: Of course you will be listening to GLaDOS some. That's why she repeats different parts of the story so many times, so you gather at least most of the story over time. And I honestly think GLaDOS' writing is better in coop anyways.

let me just say the same thing as ben did and that i did in the portal 3 speculation thread.

And this is what i wrote:

nuff' said.

Hey, so I thought...

What if a Portal/Half-Life movie, instead of directly being based on the games and their stories, created entirely new stories featuring entirely new characters that merely are supporting material to the games? Maybe instead of being about Chell, the movie could be about the rivalry of Aperture and Black Mesa back in the day before GLaDOS made Aperture fall into shit, and center around Cave Johnson. Or it could be about the Rat Man, or something else taking place in the universe. And so Valve's writers would help plot these and they would be canon alongside the games.

Maybe the movie could be about Chell, just not what happened in Aperture. Maybe about what happens after GLaDOS sends her away. Or what happened before Chell found herself being tested in the lab, and how she got there. Perhaps at some point or another, the movie might explain why she's mute.